I like having books in random places. In the bathroom, there’s a picture book by Leunig, a big matt-khaki book on Arabic literature, my lonely planet guide to
Marie Claire Dati, in Jubilation, writing about women who are like fruit, Femme mandarine, femme jus de fruit, a savannah, a spring, bamboo, colours… and in Je Déchire – I tear out - she tears out the pages of Africa with rainbow eggs that have angel flesh, an ongle de genie – fingernail of a genie, where her grandma was born on septic banana leaves, where her grandma, squatting, dropped the larme rouge de la fécondité – red tear of fecundity.
Tanella Boni writes of 'Bidonvilles' - shanty towns, where 'liberte' enchainee' to the marrow, with a banana tree that dreams, 'sous-hommes' - sub-humans, who shove and struggle to live. In Grains de Sable - grains of sand, images swim, women living, like dolls or toys, birth to death, 'sur l'estomac d'un nom d'homme' - on the stomach of the name of a man (father, husband). Like a flea. In 'Il n'ya b pas de parole heureuse' - there are no happy words, god created her woman's skin as un instrument de musique, unedited. In Gorée, ile baobab, she writes of slave ports, of stone walls that still remember cries and prayers. The 'porte du continent', memories of barbarity across the 'peau de mer' - the skin of the sea.
There's a woman whose name I love, she's called Werewere Liking, she wrote Est-ce bete! - isn't this silly! - sketching her body, 'contours et ligns elastiques' and curves, hollows, 'comme un jeu de songo' - like a songo game board - warmth, dampness, Une bouche qui remue - a mouth that moves, stiff fingers 'comme des mille-pattes sous le petrole', millipedes in kerosene.
Sans papiers (Dominique Aguessy), about immigrants drowned, perhaps on their way to the promised land. Ombres confisquées – confiscated shadows, au rhythm de traverses – in the rhythm of the crossings. Born of a nightmare told by a smuggler. All the drowned look the same, she says. Sans visage, sans nom, sans mémoire.
I flip the pages… ecstasy of a woman in orgasm. Petit mort. Beads around her waist. Poems by women who could not be traced after they wrote. A voice like a single string guitar.... Women for sale in the 'Marchand de femmes (Aminata Athie), where a woman is a heater, air conditioner, seed, talisman, jewel, body, cowry. Objet de premiere nécessité.
In 'Burkina Blues' Angele Bassole-Ouedraogo, sings of street children sleeping in makeshift beds, all over the
La souffrance des enfants de la rue she will paint, she rages, on the walls of their chateaux. Pour into their luxury gardens, La misére de méres - the misery of mothers. Reminds me of ol Pablo in Explico Algunas Cosas: people ask why doesn’t he write lilacs and leaves and dreams and volcanoes?
